W11 Changing language is not as complete as it should be

Question

I bought an Acer laptop in Germany and during setup it only offered German, so I was forced to go through setup in German. But once Windows properly started, I went into settings-language and changed it to English in all the places it's possible to do so. After some restarts and then deleting the German language, it should now be fully English. Most things are in English, but not everything. I'd say it's maybe 95% English. For example, if I click restart, the restarting message comes up in German. If I choose to restart in Safe Mode, the entire safe mode experience is in German. Here's a screenshot of another example. I was installing Firefox from the English FF installer. It got an error with the visual C run time dll and the error came up in German. I deliberately showed my language settings in the background and moved the dll error over it so it's clear to see that everything is set to English.

By the way, after having added English as another language, I tried going to Reset PC and went through that process and I was offered English as an initial setup language. Now that gave me more English, perhaps 98% but the install was bad - I couldn't open Settings any more. It would just crash on load. Tons of tips out there on how to fix Settings crashing on Windows 11 but none of them worked. So I was forced to re-install in German and then switch to English which is where I'm at now.

Anyone know if it's possible to improve from 95% English to 100% ? I can live with it as it is, but if there's an easy-ish solution I'll try it.

Answer 1

What Adiministrative language settings shows? (this should run intl.cpl)
i.e. the "Welcome screen and new user accounts" settings
if all don't say English United States, then check the boxes to copy your current settings

you will probably also need to reinstall latest Cmulative Update after installing new language

Answer 2

You can only install in any language when the installation procedure offers you that opportunity. With a full multi-language iso file, that's true. With a manufacturer customized pre-install from a foreign country, that isn't always an option. The initial setup did NOT offer anything other than German. My first attempt involved completing the setup in German, adding English, seeing that it was only 95% English and finding the Reset PC feature and trying again. At THAT point, it DID offer me English (because I'd added it) and following that setup it did give me an English install. The trouble was that the settings would always crash on open. This is also an issue reported thousands of times (google "windows 11 settings crash" and you'll see them all. There are about 5 ways people suggest to fix it, none of them worked.

So I figured a 95% English/5% German installation that was working was better than a 100% English installation that had broken settings so I did my third Windows install in German and added English and removed German to get me to where I am now.

As for re-installing and then reinstall the prior drivers or install new drivers, it's not about just drivers. It's also about bundled manufacturer specific software.

I just want to report it so that maybe one day it'll be fixed. Changing language should change language 100%, otherwise display the option as "change most of the language but not everything - yes/no".

I would report this using Microsoft Feedback but I know it doesn't get looked at. I was hoping that an MVP escalation would get more visibility.

Answer 3

In the opening post it was reported that a reset save files did not provide 100% English.

The most thorough method to get 100% English is to backup important files and then perform a clean install.

A custom install will save important files to a new Windows.old and that may be an additional option.

For Windows 11 these are trial and error steps:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3813-add-remove-change-display-language-windows-10-a.html

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/136792-change-display-language-windows-10-a.html

Clean install:

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/clean-install-windows-11.99/

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2376-create-bootable-usb-flash-drive-install-windows-10-a.html

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/download-official-windows-11-iso-file-from-microsoft.1009/

https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows11

Custom install:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/120352-custom-install-windows-10-a.html

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/148005-how-restore-files-windows-old-folder-windows-10-a.html

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Answer 4

When performing a clean install you can install any language.

Then you can either reinstall the prior drivers or install new drivers.
(the drivers can be backed up and reinstalled on a clean install)

For any issues that you want to communicate with Microsoft please use the feedback hub:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/send-feedback-to-microsoft-with-the-feedback-hub-app-f59187f8-8739-22d6-ba93-f66612949332

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Answer 5

The best option to communicate directly with Microsoft is to use the Feedback Hub:

Launch by typing: win + f

or

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/send-feedback-to-microsoft-with-the-feedback-hub-app-f59187f8-8739-22d6-ba93-f66612949332

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